


Devil Take The Hindmost

by TwoTonedJester



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Dreambubbles, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 11:07:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoTonedJester/pseuds/TwoTonedJester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sweeps of isolation have made any intrusions to your domain worth investigating.  And if there's something to be gained out of manipulation of your trespasser, all the better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil Take The Hindmost

**Author's Note:**

> For the HSO round one prompt: "gambling".

It begins when your ship is suddenly and violently rocked, throwing you from your seat and jolting you back into reality. Countless sweeps of drifting through your own memories has softened you, the monotony of death left your wits somewhat dulled, so the sharp surprise of a break in the endless drifting is a somewhat welcome shock. This dreambubble that has become your home has never been all that interesting, and time has shown to have absolutely no meaning whatsoever in your afterlife. There is a spark of intrigue that punctuates your boredom, but you are loathe to leave the confines of your chambers just yet. You’ve been rocked upon the seas before, battled storms and underwater terrors alike, and perhaps this is just a segue into a long forgotten memory of such occasions.

There are noises outside your door, the voices of crewmen long since culled, figments of your dreams given form nowadays, but you are unused to hearing them all the same. The world lurches again, and suddenly confused shouts fill the air. A cacophony of guttural responses springs forth, unfamiliar and unrecalled from even the deepest depths of your memory, and suddenly the shouting turns to calls for arms.

Your crosshairs is in your hands in an instant, because never before have you witnessed something like this, at least not since your untimely demise. A new sort of hell, perhaps, a break from the stagnating sameness into unadulterated chaos, just to jerk your thinkpan back and forth. There is no time to debate such quandaries though, because the volume outside your cabin is increasing, and memory or not, it demands your full attention.

The sight that greets you is a shock. Were you a lesser troll, perhaps you would be stunned into inaction, but sweeps of privateering have hardened you. You’re the dread Orphaner Dualscar, after all, and you did not earn that title by sitting idly by. Your ship has run aground, much to your confusion and ire, but you can’t spare the time to try to deduce how such a feat has happened because what appears to be a horde of….are those even trolls? Grey, horned figures are pulling themselves up over the side of your vessel and onto the deck, garbed in furs, feathers, and all sorts of ridiculous rags. You cock your head to the side, as if the gesture will suddenly make the entire scene before you make any sort of sense, but it leaves you more perplexed, and infuriated, than before. In half a moment your crosshairs are cocked, and you send a warning shot into the sky in a burst of white light. Everything stops as attention falls upon you. Your crew parts, allowing you to stalk forwards, eyes trained on the invading savages. You’ve half a pan to just cull them all and be done with it, but you’d much rather know what is going on before you purge the filth from your deck.

“Parley!” A voice rings out above you, and you whip your head up just in time to witness the descent of a figure you’d only ever had the misfortune of witnessing in the Marquise’s books. Her damnable prophecies and tales, times for the future, a troll of impressive horn size and talk of the future. Talk of red feelings, of a matespritship that should have been yours, not promised to a character you’d assumed had been dreamed up by some lowblooded charlatan.

And yet here you are, all but glaring as the invading trolls make space for him as he lands, gaudy wings folding behind him as he sets foot upon solid ground. This is what had prevented her affections from turning to you? This whelp of a lowblood? He grins, and you entertain the idea of shooting the head from his shoulders and being done with it. Before you get the chance to, however, he grins and cocks his head. “That’s what pirates say, yeah?”

You barely suppress a snort of derision. Parley? Really? What was this, a wiggler’s tale? You’ve not heard such stupidity in sweeps, and certainly the last troll that had attempted to use such logic on you had been swiftly dealt with. And this little shit of a troll thought himself clever? Ha! It would almost be worth indulging in his idiocy just to see how utterly foolish he was. And of course how superior you were, it went without saying.

“Wwho are you an’ wwhat are you doin here on my ship?” The words are filled with as much authority as you can manage, but he isn’t even phased. In fact, that little shit has the audacity to laugh, and you feel yourself tense, “answwer me.”

“My men and I, we’re out searching bubbles.” He waves a hand as if this is the most obvious answer, and not something that sounds absolutely pan-fuckingly insane. At your silence and deadpan stare he continues on, “pretty boring all by yourself when you’re dead, no?”

The fact that anyone could ‘search bubbles’ is a point of great interest to you, but you’d rather not show your intrigue to such an annoying little grub, and so you give him a carefully poised expression of disinterest as you process the information. For all the sweeps you’ve spent cooped up by yourself, with only the figments of your memory for company, it’s a rather novel idea that it could be possible to access other areas and their inhabitants. You give him a slow nod, gesturing for him to continue, and he grins even wider.

“Seems like we beached you, sorry about that. Didn’t know there was a water bubble, apparently mine got all tangled up with yours and brought land over.”

“Yes, yes, wwhatevver, and wwho are you anywways?”

“Ah, sorry about that. Suppose introductions are in order.” He extends his hand to you, and you make a point to stare until he retracts it. “They call me The Summoner. And you?”

You draw yourself up, staring down at him the best you can, “Orphaner Dualscar.”

A moment passes, and you see recognition in his eyes before he outright smirks, and your desire to just kill him and be done with it wars once again with your desire to learn his trick. “’ve heard of you, in stories and tales and all that.”

“I’m thrilled. Perhaps our convversation is more suited to more civvilized scenery though?” You motion towards your cabin before turning on your heel, not giving him a chance to argue. You’re already putting to mind how you’re going to pull this off as you give a small nod to your men.

He follows, and once the two of you are safely inside, you pass before the door, letting your cape flare rather melodramatically and he rolls his eyes. You answer with a similar gesture, but let it pass. It doesn’t matter, after all. Let him focus on your eccentricities if it meant him overlooking the fact that you’d locked the door and slipped the key into your pocket. Let him believe he was free to leave whenever he wished, it would only play to your favor in the future. “I havve a proposition for you then.”

He ceases examining your shelves and does his best to look over, ever awkward with those horns of his in such a confined space. “Oh? I thought we were here just to talk?”

Such a naïve creature, you couldn’t despise him more if you wanted to. Really now, if he was this trusting this would be far too easy. You’re almost a bit disappointed, but you keep it from showing. “Wwas wwonderin if you wwere a gambling man like myself, hm?”

You’re greeted to another roll of his eyes, but it seems you’ve manage to spark a bit of curiosity. Good, everything is falling into place rightly, it’s almost too easy. It’s been ages since you’ve interacted with anyone else though, and even if he’s a pest, and an idiot at that, “perhaps you’d care to place a wwager ovver a little game then?”

“What game?”

You stop to think for a moment, before giving him a sickly sweet grin, “are you knowledgeable in the wways of chess?”

“Yeah.”

 

Frankly, it comes as a surprise to you that he even knows how to play the game in the first place. You’d not taken the lowblood as one for endeavors of the thinkpan, but perhaps you’d misjudged him. As you begrudgingly were about to concede a point in his favor, an offhanded remark spills from the Summoner’s lips.

“It was a favorite of the Marquise. Of course she showed me how to.”

You can’t hide the disgusted sneer at the mention of Spinneret, and all credit that you were about to give him instantly disappears. Of course she would have taught her pet filthblood to behave like more than the barbarian he was. So like her to try to take on a pity case, to dress up a wildbeast and parade it around, to take it into her quadrants like there was something special there. For a moment there is a swell of indecipherable emotion in your vascular sac, the anger and jealousy creeping up your chitonous windtube and stealing your voice away. It disperses moments later though, and something hot and dark replaces it, a seething black hatred for the smaller troll before you. This insect that dared to have everything that you’d wanted in life, that dared to invade your personal afterlife like the arrogant slime he was.

With tremendous effort you resolve yourself to merely scoffing at the name, your eyes narrowing as you process the information and mentally weigh your options. Originally you’d intended just to humiliate and kill him, or whatever happened when you killed that which was already dead but now….perhaps you were gambling more than you’d originally thought.

“Howw about a bit of a game then? If I wwin, you showw me howw you’vve gotten betwween these bubbles.” A scoff in response, but you press on, “I promise it’ll be wworth your time.”

He doesn’t look sold on the idea. “Do you even have a board?”

You motion to the side of the chamber, where an antique board rests between a pair of ornate chairs. You’d stolen the set early on in your career, and you’d kept it as a reminder of your success. Of course now if it could win you something, you were willing to actually use it. “Of course.”

“Fine. What’s in it for me?”

Ah, the crux of your argument now. As you stalk over to one of the chairs and all but drape yourself across it, you let out a sharp whistle and almost immediately shots ring out from beyond the door, followed by screams. “If you wwin, then I let some of your men live, savvvvy?”

The Summoner lurches for the door, but you only grin when he finds it locked. As he flies into a tirade, you merely shake your head and gesture to the other chair. “You agreed, didn’t you? Goin to go back on your wword noww? I think that’d mean forfeiting.”

If looks could kill, you’re quite certain you’d be dead now, but as he finds that he can’t get out, he stomps his way over and seats himself, glaring down at the pieces. An honorable one, it seems? Useful, you’ve bound him to playing, how fortunate. “Make this quick.”

You play in silence for a while, watching him concentrate on moving slave, subjugglator, and helmsman in an attempt to ward off your assaults. It’s a gentleman’s game, and one you’re sure that he, in his short, revoltingly barbaric life, has never had ample opportunity to play. Leave it to a lowblood to find more importance in tramping through mud and squalor to battle as opposed to a proper match of wits. Even now you can see the tension wound tight in his shoulders. He’s anxious, not used to being corralled (oh look, you’ve made a hoofbeast pun, how droll) indoors while his men are cut down just outside. You reach over, knocking one of his pieces over with a wry smirk as you move one of your own to take its place. “Legislarator takes cavalreaper.”

His fist hits the table as he snarls, glaring down at the board for a split moment before he meets your eyes. Such a predictable creature, it’s sickenly easy to ruffle his feathers in such a manner. You merely stare back at him, flashing a glint of tooth as your sneer widens at his displeasure. “Somethin the matter noww? I thought you’d agreed to play by my rules, didn’t you?”

“This is stupid!” There is a brown flush of anger high on his cheeks, and you hate yourself a little more for finding it repulsively attractive. You can feel his anger, practically see it radiating off of him, but you have him trapped. He’s far too honorable to break your agreement, even if you yourself already have, and so he settles for merely slamming one of his pieces down without a second look at the board. “Sitting here, playing frivolous games!”

Your grin is venomous and wide, “that’s the gamble, shitblood. You an’ I, duelin like gentleman. Wwinner takes all.”

He makes a noise that is somewhere between a stifled oath and a snarl, hands curling and claws biting into his palms, and you can’t help but laugh. Your control is absolute over the situation, you’ve got him cornered and there’s nothing he can do.

Or rather that’s what you think until the Summoner launches himself over the chessboard at you, scattering the pieces to the floor and winding his claws in the fabric of your collar. The both of you go toppling to the floor and you lash back at him, catching his horns and shoving up as hard as you can, forcing him to arch awkwardly back. He shakes his head violently, his wings beating behind him and knocking your things from your shelves with the gusts they kick up, but you cling on, the both of you hissing and swearing and tearing at each other in an attempt to gain control of the situation.

“Devil take you,” he hisses, all but spitting his words as you sneer back. You dig your claws into the tender red of his horns and he howls, jerking at the sensation until you relent. It’s in his eyes now, that same dark hatred that’d flared in your vascular sac when you’d first met him, and you laugh. You laugh and laugh and laugh.

“Too late, he already has, and I plan to repay this grievvous insult in _spades_.” His eyes go wide as you yank his head down and crush your lips to his, catching the soft flesh with your fangs until you can taste blood, but it is over quickly as he pulls himself away, out of your grasp and back up off the floor, wings flaring. He spits brown at you, eyes narrowed and burning hot, and suddenly there’s a terrible lurch in reality that leaves you scrabbling on the floor for purchase. When things finally settle back to normal, things are quiet and he’s disappeared. A flash of rage shoots up your spine, but it resolves into a sense of smug accomplishment as you pick yourself up. The sounds of fighting outside have died down, replaced by the routine noises of your crew running the ship as normal, of the ocean licking the sides of the vessel, of nothing out of the ordinary. He’s absconded then? It seems like it, and though you haven’t learned anything about how he was able to find your bubble, you’re more than certain there will perchance be time to extract the information out of him in the future. After all, he’s turned tail and fled, and any troll with any semblance of pride couldn’t have that on their conscience.

As you dust yourself off and put your cape back in order, you spare a glace to the overturned chessboard, the smallest grin upon your lips. “I wwin.”


End file.
